Listening audioscript

SUMMARIZE THE POINTS MADE IN THE LECTURE, BEING SURE TO EXPLAIN 
HOW THEY CHALLENGE SPECIFIC ARGUMENTS RAISED IN THE READING.
 
 
WRITING SKILLS 
 
WRITING SKILL 2 
 
QUESTION 1 
 
Example Listening Passage 1A, Page 330 [ mp3 149] 
(Professor)
Fracking sounds like the greatest innovation since the Internet, doesn’t 
it!? Well, I’m afraid the reading is rather one-sided. Fracking is extremely 
controversial, and justifiably so. It has many negative aspects. The 
economic benefits have certainly been enjoyed by the fracking industry, 
but the states…well, they’ve paid a tremendous price. Floods of new 
workers have poured into states with shale sites. This has caused 
housing prices to skyrocket, so average young families can no longer 
afford homes in their own communities. Local governments have had to 
spend more on services, like police, trash collection, and schools. And 
the burden of treating health problems associated with fracking also falls 
to the states, which… umm… leads to the safety issue. 
The industry has spent many millions of dollars trying to persuade 
people that fracking is safe. But the process is inherently unsafe. The 
liquid injected into the ground contains many known cancer-causing 

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LPREP IBT 3 E AudioScript 
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substances, such as uranium, radium, and methane. These toxins leach 
out, contaminating groundwater. Methane levels tested at some sites 
were17 times higher than elsewhere. Also, the waste fluid left in pits to 
evaporate contaminates the air. There have been thousands of cases of 
respiratory illness and other health problems . . .and we haven’t even 
begun to see the long-term effects. Scientists also say that the increased 
earthquake activity around drilling sites is due to fracking.
While it’s true that natural gas now provides significantly more power 
than alternative energies, remember: wind and solar are still very 
“young.” Naturally, at this stage, they are less efficient. If the government 
invested as much money in them as it has in natural gas, solar and wind 
could compete fairly. There may be no choice; scientists now believe that 
America's natural gas reserves were greatly overestimated. They warn 
that there may be only 23 years' worth of gas left nationwide. Clean and 
safe renewable energies represent the best hope for the long term.